


This work is actually about bats.

by Mofluz



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, It'll be good fun, Just make a drinking game with my mistakes, M/M, do not ask me how i came up with them, javert's name is jean-marie, valjean's name is aime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 03:28:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5114300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mofluz/pseuds/Mofluz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javert actually works at a bat clinic, and Valjean is a professional dancer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This work is actually about bats.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KingCroweOfCamelot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingCroweOfCamelot/gifts).



> I have no explanation for this and I am terribly sorry. Also trash. Including all the meanings of the word.

The chilly wind raced up and down the streets of Paris and along the Seine, whispering to the trees and freezing Jean-Marie’s bones. Thinking of the hell that parking near the vet clinic was, he’d left his car a good quarter hour’s distance away from his workplace. He regretted that now. Taking the metro would probably have been better.  
He arrived at his car, which was old and red and loved dearly, and got in looking to warm up his fingers before they fell off. While starting the engine, Jean-Marie heard ruffling in the backseat. He could see nothing in the pitch dark of the unlit street, but when the dark moved and shifted into a human form that spoke to him, he saw that and decided he might as well have been dreaming.  
“What are you doing here?” The strange form asked again, perfectly calm and almost bored.  
“I finished my shift,” Jean-Marie said. He wanted to slap himself a second after. He’d said the dumbest thing he possibly could have. “I’m trying to drive home in my car.”  
“Ah, that’s great! Perfect, really! I need a place to crash, behind the dumpster would simply not do, and I didn’t want to puke in the car I’m spending the night in. You see, I’m very, very drunk. Don’t mind me, I don’t want to bother you! Please, drive home!”  
“I think I shall not before dealing with you. Would you mind getting off the car?”  
“No, no, that won’t be necessary, I won’t be any trouble, I promise! Would you rather I drove?”  
“Decidedly not. You must go home. Or at least to a hotel.”  
“Home…” The stranger tasted the word on his tongue, as if new to him. “But what is a home?” Then he paused and looked fixedly at Jean-Marie, “They chased me away. They always do.”  
There was no way to reason with drunk men, Jean-Marie had known, and now he saw exactly why. Still, he did not know what to do with this stranger. Taking him to his flat or leaving him in the car were not options, but Jean-Mari felt leaving him on his own wasn’t either. Take him to a hotel? On this fete day, he’d have to look all night to find an available room, plus he didn’t have the money.  
So Jean-Marie did what he had done for every lost creature he had ever found: he took the man to the clinic.  
The facility had a room full of beds that seemed to serve no other purpose than to let the staff sometimes crash there if they were extremely tired. That is where Jean-Marie dragged the babbling stranger, at the same time managing to get a good look at him. He was very muscular and tall, exquisitely showed off by his bizarre outfit. Obviously he came from a Halloween party, because he was dressed as a bat. That made Jean-Marie smile. Because really, how many people would choose to dress up as a bat? How many people saw the beauty and power of these amazing animals? None that Jean-Marie had met. This simple fact—liking bats—made him like the costumed man so much more. Strange by what little things people judge character.  
“Aimé,” the stranger muttered as Jean-Marie tucked him into bed. “My name is Aimé. My real name. Ironic, isn’t it?” he added before falling asleep.  
Yes, ironic indeed, Jean-Marie thought. He had never seem man who seemed less loved than Aimé. He had seen it in his eyes, in the way he’d said “home”. Perhaps it didn’t have to be this way, though. He found himself starting to like this bat. 

 

The next morning was the story of legends. The kind you tell your grandchildren until they correct you if you ever mess up a word. Aimé was in equal parts hungover, embarrassed, grateful, and incredibly beautiful by sunlight, as Jean-Marie found (he’d spent the night here too, guessing leaving Aimé here alone would be bad for both the bats and Aimé). He simply did not know what to do with the amount of sheer personality radiating off the ex-bat (he was now wearing Jean-Marie’s extra pair of clothes). His awkward conversational skills made him feel incredibly tongue tied, so he mostly listened to Aimé talk about dance, about social injustice, and about God in Philosophy, and how the whole soul mates urban legend was ridiculous, because let’s be honest, how can your soulmate’s name simply appear on your body just after you touch them? It was medically, physiologically impossible. It was exhilarating. Who knew a simple talk could hold so much life?  
Jean-Marie had never felt more out of his depth than when Aimé suggested they go get something to eat. He was a little afraid of the barely concealed power of Aimé, who was like the sky: beautiful and delicate, but everchanging and capable of heavenly wrath.  
Brunch was the best thing in the whole world, and with this Jean-Marie had always agreed, but brunch with Aimé was a completely new experience. He was so unrestrained and seemed so fearless, it made Jean-Marie sense the seed of madness inside him. He found himself wanting to be as free as Aimé, to say all the blunt truths that passed his mind, to let the world know what he thought unapologetically. So he did.  
He talked to Aimé about bats, about classical music, which was the only kind he actually liked, and about how it was calming for him to me alone. He said he did not think democracy was not the ideal from of governing, merely the best at the moment, and that he wished to go right now ask Nietzsche how are humans supposed to give a valid purpose to life when it is so clearly in the human nature to not be content with what one has.  
And, to Jean-Marie’s surprise, Aimé listened. People usually tuned out or turned around if he ever dared come out of his shell even a little bit, but Aimé look fascinated. This fascination amazed the most. Jean-Marie would never have imagined that the magnetic pull he felt toward Aimé could be reciprocated. Aimé seemed too ethereal, otherworldly to belong here, in this bistro with him.  
That afternoon, when they were getting ready to leave, Aimé noticed something on the back Jean-Marie’s wrist. It was a single word, written as if tattooed in a messy handwriting—“Aimé”. That exact spot was where Aimé had caressed Jean-Marie when he’d asked him out on a date. Jean-Marie had said a very energic yes.  
Jean-Marie soon found out that nothing about Aimé was ordinary. For their first date, Aimé took him to a themed Halloween party at a ballroom-dancing club. He could not remember ever dancing before, not even as a little child, and when he said as much, he got a very horrified gaze from Aimé, who promptly dragged him to the dance floor and told him “Don’t worry and don’t overthink it. Just relax and follow my lead. Dancing is the best thing there is, you’ll see.”  
That evening Jean-Marie finally understood what happiness meant. He realized he had never felt like this before. He blamed the hormones. Which he blamed on the soulmate idiocy. Which he was in denial of. They both were, to be honest. Because, once they accepted it, it would overwhelm them with questions and doubts. Certainly, he liked Aimé quite a lot, but what were the implications of having a soulmate? Nobody alive knew. Were they supposed to fall instantly in love? Were they supposed to be an ideal couple, perfectly dull and never arguing? To get married on the spot and have a dozen babies? Jean-Marie didn’t want that. To be truthful, he wasn’t even sure he wanted a relationship at all. He had been alone for so long, he didn’t remember how being close to people felt, he didn’t know what to do, and he was scared. He had only met Aimé, he just wanted to talk to this fascinating human, to get to know him, without feeling any pressure pushing down his shoulders.  
And then the damned topic came up in the conversation, of course.  
“What do you think about this soulmates thing? It’s strange. How do we deal with this?”  
“I…don’t know. I just wish there wasn’t any pressure, and that we could just interact like two normal people.”  
“Very well then.” Jean-Marie did not know it, but he was about to find out just how blunt Aimé could be. “Then let’s ignore it. I really like you, and you seem to like me too, so I don’t want to fuck this up for any reason, least of all a stupid ink. What do you say?”  
Jean-Marie grinned. “Perfect. It’s perfect.” And it really was, because Aimé thought just like he did. 

It was October again and Jean-Marie had never been more excited during the return of the cold. He and Aimé were approaching their first year anniversary, and he knew exactly what Aimé’s present will be: couple costumes for the clinic’s Halloween party. And not just any costumes, but their own symbolic ones, the roles they had given and teased each other with when they were up talking until morning came, looking at the stars or going to the countryside and listening to the singing trees. Aimé was obviously a burglar—and a very careless one at that, stealing Jean-Marie’s heart after being found in his car—and Jean-Marie was the police officer who chased him for a ridiculously long time, simply because he believed in the outlaw’s redemption. Cecile, Aimé’s best friend said it was silly. She had also said it would be Aimé’s favourite thing in the world. She was surely right, like she usually was. He didn’t care anymore.  
Jean-Marie was certain his gift would be well-liked. It was something Aimé had started talking about two weeks before October started, and had not stopped since. If there was anything Aimé wanted more than to do couple costumes, Jean-Marie could not have named it. So, he announced Aimé not to make any plans for Saturday night after the show, and he prepared the best dinner date ever, with home cooked food (pasta with a special sauce) and great wine (a bottle Jean-Marie had saved for years), and all the cheesy details. He even bought napkins with little bats drawn on them. It was in moments like this, when he felt embarrassingly mundane, that Jean-Marie remembered his anxiety about the soulmate bond and laughed at them. They had had such ugly arguments, and now they were so blissfully domestic that they jokingly said their relationship was “bipolar”. They loved each other. And that’s what really mattered, for isn’t love the best of all things?  
They were happy. He was happy. He would always be, because of Aimé.

**Author's Note:**

> I beg mercy and forgiveness.


End file.
